AT&T Defeats Texas Defamation Claims in Email Integrity Attack

AT&T defeated defamation claims brought by a third-party telecom that AT&T had accused of engaging in illegal kickbacks, a Texas Business Court ruled Thursday.

Statements by AT&T about Fiberwave are protected opinions, not facts that can be verified for their accuracy, Judge Andrea Bouressa said.

“The statements by AT&T about which Fiberwave complains are not objectively verifiable and therefore, as a matter of law, are not defamatory,” Bouressa, of the Dallas division, wrote in a summary judgment opinion.

The decision comes just three weeks after a Dec. 17 hearing—the type of quickness Texas leaders envisioned when the state opened ...